The formal structure of “And Your Bird Can Sing”

Around the corner at Crooked Timber Belle waring has an interesting post, Final Choruses and Outros Apparently. Her first example is a Beatles tune from Rubber Soul (1966), “And Your Bird Can Sing.” If you like to listen to music analytically – which I do, though not all the time, not at all! – it can throw you for a loop. You think you know what’s going on, then it goes sideways and you don’t know where you are. Just when you’re about to give up, it catches you and you are THERE.

OK, so I listened to "And Your Bird Can Sing" and took notes. I think it goes like this:

1) 4 bar instrumental (parallel guitar lines)
2) A-strain, 8 bars
3) A-strain, 8 bars
4) B-strain, 8 bars
5) 8 bar instrumental
6) B-strain, 8 bars
7) A-strain, 8 bars
8) instrumental outro, 12 bars

We start with a parallel guitars line (played by George and Paul) which is used in various ways. Up though #4 it could be a standard AABA tune, like “I Got Rhythm”. Now, if that's what was going on, we'd go back to the A-strain.

But that's not what happens, not at all. Instead we get those parallel guitars, and not for 4 bars, but for 8. Then we get a repetition of the B-strain. And that, in turn, is followed by (a return to) the A-strain, with added harmony line. It ends with an extended version of the parallel guitars line.

I suppose we can think of it as a variation on the AABA tune where the B section (often called the bridge) is extended. What makes this extended bridge (sections 4, 5, and 6) particularly interesting is the inclusion of that purely instrumental line in the middle (section 5). That’s a bit disorienting. Where are we? Are we going way back to the intro, even before the beginning of the song proper? Not really. But it really isn’t until we return to the final repetition of the A-strain (with added harmony) that our equilibrium is restored: Now I know where we are.

Those parallel guitar lines are quite striking and stand in contrast to the A and B strains, which carry the lyrics. The Wikipedia entry for the song, which is interesting and worth a read, quite properly noted that it anticipates a “type of pop-rock arrangement would later be popularised by Southern rock bands such as the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd, as well as hard rock and metal acts such as Thin Lizzy, Boston and Iron Maiden.”

Here's a recent cover version by musicians you’ve probably never heard of. Notice that one guitarist (Josh Turner) plays the parallel lines originally played by George and Paul.

For extra credit. Here’s a different, and I believe earlier, version by the Beatles. The structure is somewhat different. Setting aside the laughter and whistling, what are the formal differences?